Software for processing radio data

Greetings. I hope my question is appropriate for this group.

I was thinking of installing AIPS++. However, the version of Linux I am
running (Xandros Standard 3.0.2) is not listed on the official site:

Fedora Core release 2 (Tettnang) 3.3.3 19.1367-2ds
Red Hat Linux release 9 (Shrike) 3.2.2 19.1367-2ds
Mandrake Linux release 10.0 (Community) for i586 3.3.2 19.1367-2ds
SuSE Linux 9.3 (i586)


My question: would any of those listed above run under (Debian based)
Xandros? As you might guess, I know just enough about Unix/Linux to mess
things up.

Also, is there some other software package that I should consider, instead
of AIPS++?

tia

In article , PoorRichard
wrote:
My question: would any of those listed above run under (Debian based)
Xandros?

They're quite recent, well-known distros, so the dependencies
probably aren't particularly esoteric. The biggest issue is likely to
be that "(Debian based) Xandros" will be set up to use APT-GET for
package and dependency management, while the distros you list are all
IIRC RPM-based. But that shouldn't be too big a problem - there's at
least one method of using alien packages in these circumstances. I
believe the translation tool in question is called, errr, "alien".

As you might guess, I know just enough about Unix/Linux to mess
things up.

That's OK, I only know enough to really screw things up badly.
I've never yet got myself into a mess that I couldn't make worse G.

--
Aidan Karley,
Aberdeen, Scotland,
Location: +57d10' , -02d09' (sub-tropical Aberdeen), 0.021233
Written at Thu, 27 Apr 2006 19:07 +0100

In article ,
Aidan Karley .group wrote:
In article , PoorRichard
wrote:
My question: would any of those listed above run under (Debian based)
Xandros?

They're quite recent, well-known distros, so the dependencies
probably aren't particularly esoteric. The biggest issue is likely to
be that "(Debian based) Xandros" will be set up to use APT-GET for
package and dependency management, while the distros you list are all
IIRC RPM-based.

The issue is more likely to be the versions of the libraries that the
binaries are linked against than the installation method. A package
compiled for a particular distribution will expect the exact library
versions that that distribution provides. If you're lucky, you can
fool it with symbolic links, provided that it's not expecting a
version of the library later than the one you have. I run Debian sarge
on my work machines and have so far not found an astronomical package
that I can't get to install -- but in some cases it's been fiddly, and
once or twice I have had to pinch the appropriate library from a Red
Hat install.

As for the original question, it depends what sort of radio astronomy
analysis the OP wants to do. AIPS++ tends to have specialized
applications. Perhaps if he told us more we could be more helpful.

Martin
--
Martin Hardcastle
School of Physics, Astronomy and Mathematics, University of Hertfordshire, UK
Please replace the xxx.xxx.xxx in the header with herts.ac.uk to mail me

"Aidan Karley" .group
wrote in message ...
In article , PoorRichard
wrote:
My question: would any of those listed above run under (Debian based)
Xandros?

They're quite recent, well-known distros, so the dependencies
probably aren't particularly esoteric. The biggest issue is likely to
be that "(Debian based) Xandros" will be set up to use APT-GET for
package and dependency management, while the distros you list are all
IIRC RPM-based. But that shouldn't be too big a problem - there's at
least one method of using alien packages in these circumstances. I
believe the translation tool in question is called, errr, "alien".

As you might guess, I know just enough about Unix/Linux to mess
things up.

That's OK, I only know enough to really screw things up badly.
I've never yet got myself into a mess that I couldn't make worse G.



Thank you for the reply. I will try to install/tinker around with it, if no
other solution is found.

Cheers

"Martin Hardcastle" wrote in message
...

As for the original question, it depends what sort of radio astronomy
analysis the OP wants to do. AIPS++ tends to have specialized
applications. Perhaps if he told us more we could be more helpful.




Mr. Hardcastle,

First let me say that I have read several of your papers on radio galaxies
and benefited from the time spent doing so!

Anyway, I primarily need to be able to load, say, a .fits file and then fit
a source to obtain the total flux density. If I can do that without dealing
with AIPS/AIPS++, then so much the better.

Thanks.

"P" == PoorRichard writes:

P "Martin Hardcastle" wrote in message
P ...
As for the original question, it depends what sort of radio
astronomy analysis the OP wants to do. AIPS++ tends to have
specialized applications. Perhaps if he told us more we could be
more helpful.

[...]
P Anyway, I primarily need to be able to load, say, a .fits file and
P then fit a source to obtain the total flux density. If I can do
P that without dealing with AIPS/AIPS++, then so much the better.

I hope I don't embarrass myself with this answer, but I haven't found
anything better than good old AIPS.

These days, with the binary install feature, one can get it up and
running on a "standard" system in about the time it takes to download
the files.

If you use AIPS to do something like this, you have two choices,
depending upon whether the source is reasonably shaped.

1. Load the data using FITLD.
2. Display the source on the TV (TVINIT; TVLOD).

3a. If the source can be described by a small number of gaussian
components, use TVWIN and JMFIT to set a series of windows followed
by fitting them as Gaussians.
3b. If the source structure is more diffuse or complex, use TVSTAT to
mark an polygonal region. (Don't forget to determine the
background as well!)

--
Lt. Lazio, HTML police | e-mail:
No means no, stop rape. | http://patriot.net/%7Ejlazio/
sci.astro FAQ at http://sciastro.astronomy.net/sci.astro.html

In article ,
Joseph Lazio wrote:
P Anyway, I primarily need to be able to load, say, a .fits file and
P then fit a source to obtain the total flux density. If I can do
P that without dealing with AIPS/AIPS++, then so much the better.

I hope I don't embarrass myself with this answer, but I haven't found
anything better than good old AIPS.

I'd use AIPS for this as well in most cases, but mostly because (a)
it's what I know and (b) it deals with the units of the map in ways
that most other software doesn't. I don't know that I'd recommend it
to someone who hadn't used it before, though, especially for an
install from scratch!

I've put a web page at
http://hercules.herts.ac.uk/~mjh/radio-flux.html
detailing an alternative approach (which I actually do use, when
extracting fluxes from matched complex regions is important) that uses
tools that I think are simpler to use and install. Comments on this
are welcome, obviously...

Martin
--
Martin Hardcastle
School of Physics, Astronomy and Mathematics, University of Hertfordshire, UK
Please replace 'see.my.sig' in the header with herts.ac.uk to mail me

"Martin Hardcastle" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Joseph Lazio wrote:
P Anyway, I primarily need to be able to load, say, a .fits file and
P then fit a source to obtain the total flux density. If I can do
P that without dealing with AIPS/AIPS++, then so much the better.

I hope I don't embarrass myself with this answer, but I haven't found
anything better than good old AIPS.

I'd use AIPS for this as well in most cases, but mostly because (a)
it's what I know and (b) it deals with the units of the map in ways
that most other software doesn't. I don't know that I'd recommend it
to someone who hadn't used it before, though, especially for an
install from scratch!

I've put a web page at
http://hercules.herts.ac.uk/~mjh/radio-flux.html
detailing an alternative approach (which I actually do use, when
extracting fluxes from matched complex regions is important) that uses
tools that I think are simpler to use and install. Comments on this
are welcome, obviously...






Thank you very much. I will give this a try and let you know how it goes, if
that is OK. I will probably give AIPS a go too, but not right away if I can
get the above process to work.

Cheers.

Martin Hardcastle wrote:
I've put a web page at
http://hercules.herts.ac.uk/~mjh/radio-flux.html
detailing an alternative approach

This is very nice. Thanks. At first glance funtools doesn't work very
well when the DN in the FITS file are small, but I can always multiply
the file by a large constant.

What I'd really like to do is run JMFIT on radio data. Is there any
way to do that without installing the whole AIPS package?

In article ,
Steve Willner wrote:
Martin Hardcastle wrote:
I've put a web page at
http://hercules.herts.ac.uk/~mjh/radio-flux.html
detailing an alternative approach

This is very nice. Thanks. At first glance funtools doesn't work very
well when the DN in the FITS file are small, but I can always multiply
the file by a large constant.

Ah, yes, I hadn't thought of that.

Thinking about it, should be possible to integrate the whole radio
flux measurement thing into ds9 by merging together the existing
funtools code and my little header parsing program. In the process the
problem of the output format would be solved. If there'd be any
interest in that I could have a go next week.

What I'd really like to do is run JMFIT on radio data. Is there any
way to do that without installing the whole AIPS package?

I suspect not, at present. I've written some standalone funtools-based
code that has some of the functionality of JMFIT (in order to fit
models that JMFIT doesn't include) but it would need a lot more work
to be distributable and currently doesn't do many things that JMFIT
does. I suspect it'd be far from straightforward (though possible in
principle) to take the JMFIT code and adapt it to standalone use.

Martin
--
Martin Hardcastle
School of Physics, Astronomy and Mathematics, University of Hertfordshire, UK
Please replace 'see.my.sig' in the header with herts.ac.uk to mail me